Shipwreck

submitted by Richard Palmer

Lyons (N.Y.) Advertiser, Friday, Nov. 8, 1822

Sacket's Harbor, Oct. 11.

Dreadful Shipwreck. - Loss of the schooner Appellona, W.
Merrit, master. This vessel left Oswego on the evening of the 14th
inst. partly laden with pot ashes, salt, and about 16 tons of stone
ballast, bound to Genesee. About half past 10 P.M. Oswego light
bearing E.S.E. 18 or 20 miles distant, and about 16 miles from land,
the schooner lying under close reefed foresail, and a heavy squall
rising from the west, the vessel was struck by lightning - the master
and crew on deck knocked down, the tiller, rudder head, binnacle,
windlass, bulk head, cabin stairs, all shattered to pieces; then the
lightning stove the pumps, pot-ash and salt barrels, and went out of
the larboard side, tearing off a streak of plank about a foot below
the water's edge; we then prepared the boa, and five in number got
in, and the vessel sunk in fifteen minutes from the time she was
struck; the first sea that came, filled the boat half full of water,
the wind blowing N.W. with a heavy combing sea; kept her before it,
and about an hour before day, landed 13 miles below Oswego. The
master was very much injured in his sight and hearing, but is fast
recovering.